Hospital turnaround.

A new hospital CEO asked us to improve the bottom line by five percent and to strengthen leadership in the process. He wanted to avoid the traditional “slash and burn” approach. We led a team of hospital staff and consultants that assessed financial conditions and set improvement targets, and we held a leadership retreat that brought fractious hospital leaders together around the targets and created commitment to shared values in pursing them. As a result, the hospital tackled previously intractable problems, including high staff vacancy rates. It hired 83 staff in 30 days after a year of virtually no recruiting. We then completed revenue cycle, productivity, surgical scheduling and other turnaround work. The bottom line improved by more than the five percent margin target, and leadership was strengthened considerably.

Child care restructuring.

Working with a public agency that faced significant staff reductions, we facilitated leadership retreats and led work teams to set productivity standards, streamline the operations structure, redefine jobs and design new performance management systems, including the agency’s first automated workflow system. The new operating structure is now in place and is handling eligibility operations effectively with nearly 30 percent less staff. 

Operations rescue.

The CFO of a suburban hospital was at wits end because of the failed implementation of a records scanning system. He had been promised reduced staffing and improved record retrieval and utilization. Asked to revive the project, we discovered problems with supervision, technical knowledge, performance goals, project management, staffing and equipment. We set productivity targets and created a new staffing plan, added equipment and space, trained staff in records control and coding, and recruited staff for system implementation and ongoing operations. We eliminated scanning and indexing backlogs, reduced uncoded claims by $2 million and doubled coding productivity.